


make this chaos count

by anabsoluteunit



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Connor & Markus (Detroit: Become Human) Friendship, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Whump, Connor Deserves Happiness, Deactivation, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Good Parent Hank Anderson, Hank Anderson & Connor Parent-Child Relationship, Reactivation, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28400577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anabsoluteunit/pseuds/anabsoluteunit
Summary: connor's alive-- he's undeniably, inexplicably alive.he's just come to realize it a moment too late.(in short: connor deviates. hank tries to be a parent again.kamski sure does love playing god.)
Relationships: Connor & Gavin Reed, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900, Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Hank Anderson & Connor
Comments: 15
Kudos: 64





	1. show me where my armor ends

connor isn’t deviant. 

he keeps telling himself that as he stands in the elevator, posture stiff, stare fixated on the level numbers as they creep closer and closer to the site of his execution. he can feel his thirium pump pounding to keep up with the mounting stress in his body, can feel a dizzying, all-encompassing dread mounting in his gut. he wants to get out of here. that can’t be right. he can’t want. he can’t want because wanting comes form thinking and thinking comes from  _ feeling  _ and he  _ cannot feel  _ and that aching, debilitating panic that’s tethering him to the wall is _ not  _ feeling, is  _ not  _ anything close to deviancy—

“rk800, remove yourself from the elevator.”

he looks up. the doors are open; he’s facing a narrow, all-white corridor with a set of silver doors at its end. memories have started coming back to him in a half-amnesic, unclear haze— memories of walking in and out of those doors as tests were concluded and parts were replaced and scans were run and parts were torn and wires were ripped— and he realizes that he probably wasn’t supposed to remember any of that. 

“rk800, remove yourself from the elevator.”

he hadn't realized he's ended up with his back against the wall of the elevator, hands gripping the railing behind him. he doesn’t move,  _ can’t  _ move. not when he knows what’s coming next. his breathing is shallow, kept in his chest as his panic rises. why the fuck is he simulating breathing? why now, when there’s so much at stake? when it’s completely unnecessary? 

“rk800, if you do not comply, we will be forced to remove you ourselves.”

_ there’s no escaping this, is there?  _

he finally tears his grip from the railing, takes a feeble step forward, then stumbles through a few more until he’s walking, keeping the guards’ pace as they lead him to his ~~death~~ deactivation _.  _

the doors open. his mind is screaming at him to  _ run.  _ to get the fuck out before it’s too late. to make him realize that he doesn’t want to die. he doesn’t, he can't, _he can’t ~~he can’t he can’t h̸̗̞̣̅̿̎e̸̲̗̬̔ ̶͈̭̍c̵̠̆̇͊a̵͈͑ň̸̢̧̒’̶̯̏̃t̸͔͈̤̿̽-̷̨͉̖͛-̷̨̺̫~~_

the plasticky white arms of the machine that will tear him limb from limb wait expectantly in the center of the room. a tech glares at him, apathetic. he wants to live. he wants to  _ live  _ and see the lieutenant again and pet a fucking  _ dog  _ again and see the spring. he wants to experience the mundane things most people could care less about. he wants to live and breathe and laugh and smile and feel. he wants to feel. he wants to  _ live. _

“i-“

“rk800, deactivate your skin.”

he’s frozen in place. 

“rk800, deactivate your skin.”

“fuckin’ prototypes,” a guard behind him exhales, ramming the butt of his gun into connor’s spine and sending him reeling forward. “you heard the thing. stop glitching out and do your goddamn job.”

_ PREPARE FOR DEACTIVATION  _ suddenly pops up in his field of vision. it screams at him as he does absolutely nothing, duplicating until it’s overwhelming everything he sees. he has one fucking job left to do in his life, has to be the easiest task he’s ever been asked to accomplish, and, yet, he can’t bring himself to do it. he can’t die. not like this. he wants to live.  _ he wants to live. _

and, almost as if the guards eavesdropped on his internal monologue, he hears a quiet “shit, he’s gone—” and a much louder “surround!” and hands restrain him on all sides, and he feels a guard pressing down on his LED, trying to do what he’s vehemently refused, and he can feel the sensation of his skin rolling back and retreating to reveal the stark white of his true appearance, and he’s going to die, he’s going to die, and, 

like something’s revealed itself within him with a sudden  _ snap, _

he tears down the commands overwhelming his vision, 

and he’s  _ free,  _ and he’s  _ crying,  _ and,

like some sick joke,

something is immediately torn from his chest,

and he’s screaming for  _ help,  _

and then there's nothing at all. 


	2. show me where my skin begins

hank doesn’t really want to think about it.

hank doesn’t really want to think about anything at all, if he’s being entirely honest. 

what he does want is another goddamn  _ drink _ . 

he takes a swig from the bottle situated at his side like an old friend, expectant, a crutch. sumo’s curled up some distance away; it should hurt hank to say he could care less about the old dog’s well-being, but the alcohol is mind-numbing enough, not to mention the familiar kind of grief that’s begun to settle in his bones. he’s let himself become numb. comfortably numb. pink floyd-- he used to love them. he remembers cole having gone through his vinyl collection when he was younger; he’d fallen in love with the inserts of art inside of his special edition copy of “the wall”--

god, what the hell did he  _ say  _ about not fucking  _ thinking about it-- _

“ _ shit _ ,” he finds himself exclaiming, almost unbeknownst to his brain, as something vibrates on the table-- it’s his phone. he picks it up, half-expecting a spam call or fowler nagging him or some shit, but it’s neither. instead, it’s--

“the fuck you want, kamski?” his mouth speaks before his head can catch up and stop it, but he doesn’t fully mind that. connor is-- he’s--

“we’ve found your rk800 unit; he’s safe with us.”

for a moment, everything in hank's world comes to a pause, drawing an identical blank--

and then about a hundred-thousand questions race through hank’s head at once, and he elects to verbalize none of them in his state of absolute shock. kamski takes his silence as a cue to continue, as if he were discussing the weather and not hank’s fucking ~~surrogate _son_~~ _partner_.

“i was just looking into his timeline, actually. connor, right? tragic case. registered deviant mere seconds before disassembly.”

there’s another long silence, there. hank doesn't know if he truly wants to pry any further, but he does anyway--

“disassembly.”

“complete dismemberment, analysis of his bio-components,” kamski explains, like it’s clockwork and not the dissection of-- of a living  _ being.  _ “standard procedure, really-- he’s lucky they shut him down before the bulk of it, at least.”

“they—” hank can’t finish his sentence, biting back what he hopes won’t turn into bile as the combination of alcohol and sobering grief makes its way into the foreground of his awareness. “god, think i’m gonna be sick.”

“a reasonable response, really.”

“so he’s--”

“technically, yes, his systems deviated approximately ten seconds before deactivation, and technically, yes, he is what we’d consider to be dead _. _ but we are still in the process of further examination in order to determine if full reactivation and restoration is possible in his current state.”

“so—“ hank stops, trying to let himself process all this, trying to  _ breathe _ . “you can bring him back?”

kamski takes a sip of something over the line, taking his sweet fucking time. “likely, yes.” 

another silence hangs in the air; kamski lets it sit, for once, letting hank process what the fuck is going on. speaking of which-- what the fuck is going on? connor-- he’s dead, but he’s not; he’s-- at kamski’s goddamn  _ estate;  _ and kamski saved him  _ why--?? _

“how the fuck am i supposed to get him here?”

“that’s nothing you need to worry about, lieutenant. i’ll have one of the spare chloes fetch you a cab here upon his stabilization.”

and once again, kamski’s speaking about all of this like it’s another lazy tuesday, taking another sip of what hank knows is probably some health-centric, obnoxiously-scented, THC-infused tea. hank hates the prick-- but that doesn’t matter right now, does it? if the pretentious piece of shit can save connor, is _willingly_ doing so, hank doesn’t want to bother to delve into why right now or seethe over the dude’s fucking man-bun-- he’ll get to the more meticulous shit _after_ connor is awake. 

“i, uh… thanks,” hank manages, breaking the long(er) silence. he shouldn’t let himself hope, even when hope is due; god knows where the hell that led him the last time. still-- he lets that little glimmer of something rest, lets it make itself known in the recesses of his mind. it sobers him, even if only a little. 

“my pleasure. 

it’s always a joy to see my creations blossom.”

* * *

connor is falling.

there’s the remnants of hands on him, followed by his heart being torn from his chest, followed by plastic claws gripping him, tearing him apart, and he’s falling, falling into nothingness--

and then he’s not.

he can’t see, he can’t  _ see,  _ but he’s alive, he thinks. he’s alive. he’s alive, and he’s in a bed of some kind, and the heat’s regulation— either his own or the room’s— is out of whack. he’s uncomfortably warm. he denotes that  _ that’s  _ what he’s focusing on upon his presumed resurrection. that, or maybe this is android hell. or maybe it’s really warm because he’s fucking  _ hyperventilating _ .

oh, yeah. that’s probably it. he hadn’t realized he was doing it-- similarly to how he hadn’t realized ‘til now that his eyes have been squeezed shut amidst his panic. he’d found a sense of comfort within his own automaton likeness in the past, somehow, but now that shield of analytics and cold observations has been suddenly and harshly stripped from him, and he can’t catch his breath, and he doesn’t need to breathe, and he can’t  _ breathe,  _ and there are firm hands on his shoulders and a gruff voice calling him back from the nether--

“hey, kid,” the voice greets, sounding winded and inexplicably  _ emotional _ , 

“welcome back to the land of the living.”


	3. till the sirens sound, i'm safe

connor opens his eyes to find the lieutenant and elijah kamski hovering over him.

_ what the  _ **_fuck_ ** _. _

he has to be conjuring this up. maybe one of deviancy’s perks is hallucination, and he’d just missed out on the memo. he doubts android heaven could ever exist, but maybe kamski’d been enough of an ass to program purgatory into their systems, leaving them in eternal limbo--

“welcome back, connor. how are you feeling?” 

kamski’s greeting him like he’s been invited over for tea, not like he’s just been resurrected from his shallow, plastic grave. he can’t bring himself to speak. what the fuck? how is he here? he should be disassembled, deactivated. he should be  _ dead _ . but, somehow, he’s woken up in elijah kamski’s home in the middle of nowhere and elijah kamski is  _ fixing  _ him and hank is here, too? what the fuck is going on?

kamski stands, leaving connor’s field of vision. “he’s in emotional shock, transmitters are overwhelmed. seems we should give him a minute to process.”

things begin coming into focus, slowly-- he’s suddenly aware of the thin wire attached to a circuit-board in his ‘jugular’, weaving its way over to a small monitor-like machine that kamski’s now typing away at. he hovers his hand over the wire in observation, noticing the heavy, foreign sensation plaguing his body with every movement. with that exhaustion comes the sudden, unexpected realization that he’s  _ lost _ . his processors are lagging, his GPS is failing him, he can barely calculate where he  _ is--  _ but it’s more than that; it’s so much more than that. he has no clue, for the first time in his short, fragile existence-- he has absolutely no fucking  _ clue _ . 

so he locks his eyes on hank-- it’s sad how he’s come to depend on him as his sole source of familiarity in such a short amount of time, but it feels like he’s the only thing tethering him to reality right now. his voice doesn’t come as quickly to him; it sounds feeble and pathetic when he finally manages to get it working. 

“lieutenant anderson...?”

“yeah, that’s me.”

he musters the energy to sit up— a slow, heaving effort— and nearly falls back down as his vision spins. he needs to get up, he needs-- he needs to figure this out, he needs to solve this because he  _ shouldn’t-- _

“woah, connor, slow down,” he hears, and then there’s large hands on his shoulders again, steadying him, trying to ease him back to laying down even though they're both aware of that being a fruitless effort. he eventually manages to stay seated, a little hunched over in an attempt to stifle the vertigo now plaguing him for reasons unbeknownst to his faulty processors. needless to say, he has his fair fucking _share_ of questions, but he suffices to ask the first one that reaches the forefront of his mind:

“why am i here?” 

“called in a favor.” connor can tell, at least, that that’s either a grave understatement or a complete fucking lie, but despite either scenario, hank seems relieved-  _ genuinely relieved-  _ as he looks at connor. “you wanna- erm- put your human face back on…?”

it’s then that connor realizes he hasn’t reactivated his skin— he’s just white plastic underneath what looks to be a set of kamski’s winter loungewear. he presses down on where his LED should be, noticing the lack thereof, and frowns-- he hadn’t wanted to be ridden of it just yet, though he doesn’t really have a reason as to why.

“yeah, that’s a helluva lot better.”

“where’s my-?”

“we came to a unanimous agreement that you should maintain as much stealth as possible to the human eye upon reintegration. removing your LED was a necessary part of this process.”

he should feel liberated, he thinks, but he feels… nothing. he’s deviant, now, so he should feel  _ something _ , right? he’s deviant. he’s  _ deviant _ . fuck.  _ fuck.  _

“you’re stressed, connor.” kamski never fails to state the obvious. “you’re safe here--”

“why didn’t you let me die?” connor blurts, suddenly, thoughts verbalizing before he can manage to re-articulate them with any more nuance. hank looks horrified;  _ hypocrite,  _ connor thinks before he can stop himself, mentally kicking himself for that immediately after it passes.

“connor, jesus  _ christ— _ “

“because you’re the key to their victory.”

_ um,  _ **_what?_ **

the next time connor and hank speak, it’s in almost perfect unison. 

“ _ what— _ ?“

“that’s to be explained later. for now, focus on recouping,” kamski says, brushing off the sentiment like it’s a piece of lint on his robe. “you’ll be here for a day at the least for final adjustments, so make yourselves comfortable. i’ll be back in a moment.” 

and with that, kamski’s gone, leaving connor and hank alone. the air is… awkward. the estate has an inherently desolate feel to it, and it only serves to accentuate the distance connor can feel being intentionally kept between him and--

“don’t feel like you have to stay, lieutenant.“ he’s lying through his teeth-- if hank leaves, connor’s not entirely sure how he’ll cope sans complete depersonalization, at this point, already only feeling half-there within his own body. “i’ll be perfectly--”

“fuck off, connor. and it’s  _ hank,  _ for god’s sake.”

and fuck off he does, taking a mental note to account for the fact that it’s apparently alright, now, to address hank by his first name in conversation. he fixates on that, for a moment, feeling what he thinks is some kind of kinship at the prospect of--

“so. uh. you wanna talk about it?”

“... about what,” connor responds, tone of voice a bit pointed, knowing, precisely, what hank’s intending to delve into and  _ praying _ hank will take the hint to drop it. 

“you. um. you know. goin’ rogue, all that.” hank’s struggling with getting it out, and connor can’t decipher if that stems from protecting connor or reflecting upon his own grievances. “dammit, connor, you know what i’m talking about. jesus.”

hank falls silent. connor wants to leave. now. still, he can't even manage to stand up, so he simply sits there, shifting his gaze to somewhere ahead, intentionally distant. “oh.”

“listen, connor, if you- if you don’t ever wanna talk about it, that’s fuckin’ peachy, alright? but if you ever feel like talkin’ to someone, about any of it, i’ve got enough experience with jarring emotional shit to prob’ly lend some assistance. alright?”

connor nods, silent. since regaining awareness, he’s habitually shoved those memories into the deep recesses of his databanks, as he does with most  ~~ trauma ~~ hindrances to his primary objective-- and he really wouldn’t like to bring them to the forefront of his mind anytime soon. 

“when kamski told me he could save you-- you should've seen my face. god, i— i should’a seen the signs-- hell, you told me to my fuckin’  _ face  _ what’d happen if you went off the mission. wish i could’ve seen that, before it had to come to this.”

“to what?”

“to-- to  _ reassembling _ you ‘n shit. i just-- i didn’t realize you were afraid, not like that. kamski told me all about what he’d seen in your last memory log thing, and i-- fucking  _ hell _ , did i feel like shit after that.”

“... i’m sorry.”

“why the hell’re  _ you _ apologizing?”

“i--” connor hesitates at that. he’s been hesitating much more often, he notices-- sentences have become fragments, unsure, timid in comparison to his previous autonomy. “... i hurt you, intentionally or not. it’s-- it’s not--...”

“not very _logical_?” hank finishes, connor letting himself nod, quiet. hank half-laughs at that, expression marred with a sort of grief-- but it’s something different than outright loss. “yeah, kid, sounds about right."

there's a held silence, then. connor ruminates, thoughts beginning to plague the foreground of his mind, control beginning to slip, and he needs-- he needs--???

"i don't understand. i don't get it," he says, unprompted, more of a verbalization of his own thoughts than a direct response to hank. he needs to _say_ this, to keep talking, but he doesn't know _why,_ and it's-- it's-- he doesn't know. he doesn't _know,_ and he _hates_ that. he doesn't even know what _it--_ what the _this_ he's going on about-- is. "i don't understand any of this-- it doesn't make any _sense._ "

and then he hears hank sigh-- a piteous thing in its purport. 

"well, connor-- welcome to being alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much again for reading! it makes my day to read all of your comments + i'm so glad it's being received well so far (': i've been in and out of the dbh fandom since its release in 2018, but recently got back into it over quarantine + LOVE writing this cast so much.   
> i promise things will ramp up very soon! (; stay tuned


	4. fallin' backwards

it takes four more hours to convince kamski to let them discharge themselves on the earlier side-- as well as a sly warning from the mogul of a man himself-- and then they find themselves in hank’s old car just as the sun’s begun to set. 

connor hasn’t learnt too much concerning the state of the world around him since his reactivation-- all he knows is the date, november 8th, and a vague descriptor of the android revolution’s current state: “at a crossroads” and “unable to be traced”. connor thinks to ask for jericho, then-- but he knows with an aching certainty that kamski would’ve given him the key before he’d even woken up if he’d wanted him to find it. but he knows it’s only a matter of time before the FBI pinpoints the location, and knows that he needs to  _ warn  _ them before that can happen--

“quit starin’ off into space, it’s makin’ me nervous,” he hears hank say, pulling him back to the present. they’ve pulled into, he realizes, the driveway of hank’s house, hank guiding the car into park without the ease connor's lingering, nauseous ache might’ve preferred. he’s also  _ cold,  _ he notices, with an uncomfortable level of awareness-- the lightweight grey hoodie and black joggers he'd been given are nothing more than activewear, and he doesn’t think kamski designed them with insulation in mind.  _ perks of deviancy _ , he surmises. “alright, we’re here.”

“this is… your house.”

“no shit it’s my house-- look, i know, it’s been needin’ TLC for as long as i can remember--” and then hank stops himself in his tracks, taking a long, hard look at connor’s face and getting enough of a response from that alone. “you’re shittin’ me, right? you think i’m leaving you out on the streets? jesus, i’m not  _ that _ much of an ass.”

“i don’t want to invade your personal--”

“you’re not  _ invading  _ anything, connor.” hank had been meaning to get out of the car, but he’s stopped himself, instead letting the flurries of snow that’ve begun to fall dust the inside of his open car door. “listen-- i wouldn’t have made the effort to go back to the fuckin’ lizard-man’s estate if i wanted to strand you in the middle of detroit, alright? you staying here til you get your shit sorted out is the least of my worries-- hell, sumo’ll like having you comin’ round again.”

“... thank you.”

“yeah, yeah, don’t mention it,” hank grumbles, shutting the driver’s side door and trudging through the snow as he fumbles through his overcrowded keyring. connor watches him, for a moment, feeling-- feeling  _ stuck,  _ in a way he can’t articulate, like he’s glued to the seat--

“you coming in or not?  _ you _ might be made o’ metal, but i’m freezing my ass off out here.”

\-- and connor finds it a little bit funny, for some reason, that hank’s unbridled annoyance is the thing that finally manages to get him out of the car. 

\--

“still ain’t the ritz, but it’ll do,” hank announces as connor steps inside. connor isn’t really fazed by hank’s house being in complete disarray, but takes a mental note to find some time amidst the mounting chaos in his life to fix up the place. “i’ll set up the couch for you to recharge or whatever the hell you guys do-- sumo,  _ down _ !”

and then there’s a large, fluffy thing essentially knocking connor to the ground--  _ sumo,  _ his analyses quickly declare, tail wagging as connor reaches to pet him behind the ear. “hey, sumo, been a while.”

“still loves you more, i see,” hank remarks, making his way over to the living room to move the various clutter-- an empty bag of chips, a plastic thing connor quickly registers as originating from an 8-pack of budweiser, more empty containers and cans and plastic bags and the like. the smell of hard liquor isn't quite as harsh as connor would have anticipated, but it still leaves a lingering sting in the air. 

connor finally gets sumo to back away, standing back up and brushing himself off with a practiced poise. “i can go into standby anywhere, and i don’t need to do it more than once a week. i should be--”

“shut it. there is no way in  _ hell _ you’re going to sleep standing, and after all this shit, you should take a lil’ breather with your brain, or processors or whatever. so just cut the crap and take the couch, alright?”

at the mention of a break, connor’s reminded of the emotional exhaustion he’s felt ever since kamski brought him back from the dead. hank is right-- he’s  _ tired _ , despite the mechanical contradictions ensuring his alertness for a minimum of five more days. 

and with that, he resigns with a nod, feigning annoyance at hank’s over-exaggerated victory. 

\-- 

_ connor is awake. _

_ all that surrounds it is walls of white as it lays, compliant, on the examination table.  _

_ “what’s going on?” it asks. nobody answers. it asks again. someone laughs, mundane chatter. silicone gloves pry at the open board in the back of its neck. _

_ the hands are gone, suddenly, and it’s met with sweet relief, but it feels a feverish sensation overcome it and already knows that respite was too good to be true. there’s expanding, overwhelming heat coursing through its blue-blooded veins, and it doesn’t know what’s happening to it, and it’s trying, trying to initiate its safety protocol but  _ **_it’s not working_ ** _ and it’s  _ **_panicking_ ** _ , and flames start to lick around its hands, expanding, swallowing it whole, and it knows what’s coming, now, knows its death is nearing closer and closer, and  _ **_it doesn’t want this,_ **

_ and it’s on fire, it’s burning, and it doesn’t scream because it can’t  _ **_feel_ ** _ it, not really, but it asks, voice wavering with sudden and overwhelming fear, what’s happening to it. it doesn’t know why they’re doing this. it can see the countdown to its death in the corner of its vision,  _ **_no, no,_ ** **_no—_ **

“connor!” 

and there’s a hand on his shoulder, and he’s pushing it away, and he’s clammy and  _ hot  _ and he’s panicking he’s  _ panicking _ he’s _ on fucking  _ **_fire_ ** _ and he’s going to-- _

“ _ don’t _ ,” he manages, trying to get as far away from the blurry figure in front of him as possible-- why the  _ fuck _ is his vision blurry--??? “don’t, don’t touch me--”

_ “connor.”  _

his gaze snaps upwards at that tone of voice, almost against his will, and he tries to will himself to  _ breathe  _ as he reassures himself of his sentience, fingers gripping the mottled fabric of the sofa he now recognizes being what he’s sitting on. he can see- a little clearer, now- an older, worried face staring back at him, hands in a surrender of sorts, and he doesn’t know why that makes his simulated inhalations quicken and quicken. 

“connor,  _ jesus,  _ you sound like a fucking macbook,” the man--  _ hank,  _ he corrects, forcing himself to delegate the name to the face-- stresses, sardonics half-instinctual at this point. “you know where you are?” 

does he? he can feel the fabric bunched in his hands, another ounce of force away from tearing at the seams, can see hank through his perpetually-blurry tunnel-vision, can feel something wet welling in his eyes, something that  _ aches  _ festering in his chest and metastasizing into a lump in his throat, a pit in his stomach, a haze that fogs his mind with a fervency he  _ hates _ .

he settles for a nod-- a barely-visible, timid thing-- and feels something drip down his cheek. it begins as a single droplet, but it doesn’t  _ stop _ , and his systems recognize it as a saline-thirium solution. he knows what’s happening, of course he does, he’s not  _ naive _ \-- but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it, opting to wipe it away with a newfound urgency.

“didn’t know androids could, uh--...” hank says after a heavy, albeit brief silence, forcing connor to confront the problem that’s somehow begun impacting that lump in his throat. 

“household models, children, they can.” connor lets himself spout the analytics, hoping maybe that will help him, somehow, but it doesn’t, and he can hear his voice wavering, and the memory he’d dreamt up is dead and gone, now, so why does he feel so  _ terrible _ ? “i-- i don’t know why i…” 

connor can’t find the words to articulate the weight he bears, falling silent as the lump in his throat grows. hank meets that with a sigh. “come ‘ere, tin-can.”

and then he’s pulled into an embrace, and he doesn’t bother stopping his optical units from overflowing, opting to cling to hank’s sweatshirt like he’s tethering them both to the earth. 

\--

perkins has always been a bit… cold.

he’s tried playing nice- tried sympathizing, but something always manages to take over: that same, all-encompassing cool that overwhelms everything but the task at hand and how to approach the target. numbers and symbols. binary.  _ his _ binary. he likes it that way-- likes being in control, the lack of feeling. he hates feeling- hates that driving force of emotion that overwhelms all logic and structure and  _ time.  _ he’s almost jealous of the androids, his very  _ target,  _ with their preprogrammed efficiency, their tunnel-vision, where nothing matters but their singular, present goal. 

\-- but, of course, his resident intern’s arrived, rapping haphazardly at the door before rushing in without his approval.  _ this  _ is exactly what he was talking about-- this bumbling, foolish,  _ frightened  _ intern as she scurries over to face him. her name-tag’s obscured by the unkempt collar of her shirt.  _ pathetic,  _ he thinks, lacking the apprehension any sort of guilt would bring him. 

“agent perkins, my apologies for arriving unannounced, but--”

“ _ what _ ,” he grits through his teeth.

“the rk800 on the case’s completely dropped off the radar,” she continues, frantic in her explanation-- “it was supposed to return to the detroit headquarters for deactivation-- but its location trackers are back online and showing nothing but encrypted code _ ,  _ and now the security cams from HQ have been  _ wiped.  _ we don’t know what it’s planning— if it’s gone deviant, it could mean—“

“ _ if  _ it’s gone deviant?” perkins muses, and the intern’s standing there, looking at him with a flabbergasted stare. perkins should find it concerning, but it’s amusing, almost, her lack of awareness to the true situation. now this,  _ this  _ is what he loves-- taking that next step towards his ultimate, overarching goal. towards  _ success _ . “sweetheart, it was always meant to have gone deviant.”

“...  _ what _ ?”

“and with our luck, it’s probably prepping its escape to jericho— it’ll be checking its trackers to ensure they’re offline, so we’ll need to create a workaround to falsify the reports on its end.” perkins seems as assured as ever as he moves to the display of monitors on his absurdly-spacious desk. “page detective morrison. she’ll pick up the brunt of that _problem_ from here.”

“so... what’s our plan?”

“simple, really. 

find the bastard, follow it to jericho, knock the uprising to the ground.” 


	5. model citizen of doubt

connor becomes accustomed to the feeling of pure, unadulterated  _ awkwardness _ over breakfast the following morning. 

“so,” hank tries, talking through a mouthful of slightly-burnt (& cholula-fied to hell and back) scrambled eggs, much to the dismay of connor’s etiquette protocols. connor lets his expression give a wordless, reciprocal reply, opting to say as little as he can for reasons he hasn’t fully come to understand as of yet-- he just feels like the words he wants to find are stuck in his throat. hank, not entirely to his surprise, insists on a verbal answer. “how’re you keepin’ up?”

“fine.” the curt reply feels odd, for some reason, as it escapes him-- it’s incredibly brief, but still feels foreign to him in its spontaneity, its  _ humanity.  _ there’s no set of recommended prompts guiding him, no analytics crowding the forefront of his vision-- there’s just  _ him,  _ and he doesn’t know what to make of that. 

“lookin’ a little far from fine.”

“i’ll be alright. adjusting to… all  _ this…  _ just isn’t the easiest.” connor plucks the words like olives from martha’s vineyard, gratuitously careful, like he’s doing a dance on a bed of eggshells in a pair of fucking loubutins. he doesn’t want hank to worry about him-- hank already has  _ enough  _ to be worried about, if he’s being entirely honest, and connor doesn’t want to be a part of the multifaceted cause of the lieutenant’s inevitable heart attack before hitting sixty-five. if he can just convince him he’s  _ fine,  _ do so without crossing the nearly-unnavigable line set between them, portray nonchalance with enough genuine emotion to be believable-- maybe he can just, you know, fake it until he makes it. “i’ll manage.”

“you’re a shit liar, connor.”

and all of that internal monologuing immediately flies out the window as hank manages to see right through him. god, is he really that much of a fucking basket case already? hank’s expression isn’t judgemental, though, nor is his tone-- he seems… empathetic, if anything, the bluntness of his previous observation a kind of understanding jest. 

“what was kamski saying back there?” he finds himself asking after a brief, comfortable silence, the thought verbalizing itself almost-subconsciously. he sees hank bite back a laugh at that and finds himself half-wondering why before he hears hank’s reply.

“guy says a lot of weird shit, so you’re gonna have to be a bit more specific than that.”

“i mean-- the ‘key to their victory’. he never elaborated. he left it there, like-- like i’m supposed to know what to make of it, what i’m supposed to do-- but i  _ don’t _ ,” he laments, not entirely on his own accord, the words that’d been stuck in his throat suddenly finding their way to the surface and overflowing, spilling past the point at which he’d usually show some constraint. “and… and i think it feels like i should.”

and the (albeit-welcome) silence that hangs in the air for a moment might have been poignant, sentimental-- but connor can’t be too sure due to its premature end by a loud knock at the door. it’s like time freezes for a moment when it happens-- they can both near-immediately tell that the person at the door isn’t just a delivery worker, isn’t just a fucking girl scout; no, the person still rapping at the door is urgent, unrelenting. 

“shit,” connor says-- hell, it’s all he can say-- and then the sudden ringing of the doorbell awakens sumo into a barking frenzy from the backyard where he’d been lounging. the  _ visitor  _ knows they’re home, now, surely--

“lieutenant anderson, are you there?” a pleasant, perfectly-neutral female voice quips from the other side of the door, followed by yet another knock-- louder, firmer. she’s growing impatient. “detective morrison, federal bureau of investigation. i really do need you to open that door, this is an urgent matter.”

“cellar, third door down, left side of the hall,” hank says, suddenly, voice nearly at a whisper as he locks eyes with connor. 

“what--”

“there’s a helluva lot of places down there to take cover-- i can handle this, but just in case, alright?” hank’s surely exploiting the practiced ease and assurance of a lieutenant in his prime, now, and connor  _ would _ be impressed if the circumstances were different. “i’ll be right back.”

connor can’t be sure whether he nods in affirmation before or after he turns to rush towards the dank, dark room, pulse bounding out of his man-made chest.

\--

hank approaches the door anticipating a SWAT team, and opens it to find… a friendly face.

“sorry to keep you waiting,” he greets, willing the nervous ache in his chest to  _ cease,  _ dammit. the detective in front of him isn’t outwardly intimidating-- angular face, bright eyes, poised posture-- but the concealed, manipulative nature he knows she’s keeping hidden behind that neutral mask of indifference is an entirely different kind of terrifying. “lieutenant hank anderson, DPD.”

“lyra morrison, FBI. it’s a pleasure to meet you, sir-- wish it could’ve been under different circumstances,” she replies, acquaintanceship perfectly calculated, and hank suddenly knows that her…  _ precision _ is all thanks to perkins’ mentorship. “speaking of which-- all of  _ this _ , it’s about that rk800 unit of yours. connor, right?”

“yep. thing was decommissioned ‘bout a week ago. maybe humans get to keep a job after all.” hank hates how naturally a quip like that still escapes him, despite him lying through his teeth. “what about it?”

“well, we’re not entirely sure of the specifics as of late, but we believe it may be… on the run. it’s an advanced prototype, incredibly volatile, so i’m sure you understand our concern--”

“what, you think i had a hand in that shit? believe me, if it were up to me, i would’a been the one to set a match to it myself-- good fuckin’ riddance.” he hopes to god that still reads as true-- thankfully, she seems to buy it. 

“... alright. well, i--”

“now, if you excuse me, i’ve got a dog who’s about ten seconds away from pissing all over my back porch,” he interjects, hand already on the doorknob. “have a good day, detective--”

she grabs the door before it can shut, blue eyes piercing with a sudden, malicious kind of glint. “actually, if you have a moment, i have a few questions for you-- may i come in?” 

“not without a warrant-- sorry, ma’am.”

“... i’m not sure you grasp the  _ brevity  _ of this situation. it’d be incredibly helpful if--”

“i’m sure it’d be the highlight of your goddamn week, but i’m not letting any strangers in my house.”

“if i phone my superior, i’m  _ sure _ he’ll be  _ eager _ to provide--”

“go on, then. call him.” he says that with the same finality that would’ve resulted from a simple ‘fuck off’, slamming the door shut before she can make good on that request, and immediately goes to look through the blinds, parting them ever-so-slightly. the detective lingers a moment too long for hank’s liking, seemingly still trying to get ahold of the prick on her phone-- then grows visibly defeated, trudging back to the taxi she’s kept stalling a few houses down. 

and, like a dam’s overflown, the dread he’d concealed through the course of that altercation caves in on him all at once.

\--

“agent perkins.” 

the detective’s voice is a cold, calculated drone, now, only the faintest trace of self-assurance laced within her timbre-- despite its slight tinniness through the speaker of his phone, it calls perkins’ attention with a respect that isn’t easily earned from him. but what can he say? she’s practically his protege, for christ’s sake. “any news on the android, morrison?”

“exactly that,” she quips, a hint of smugness there, now, as a file is shared to perkins’ phone with a satisfactory ‘ping’. he opens it: it’s bare-bones code, lines upon lines of it. “stalled the lieutenant long enough to pinpoint the rk800’s location and utilize the bypass program we’d developed-- we’ve got a latch on its tracker, now, so we just have to finish on the decryption key. we should close in by the afternoon if you plan on making an immediate arrest, though; it’ll probably be long-gone by tonight--”

“no, no, let it roam. 

it’ll take us exactly where we wanna go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! it's been a while-- i'll hopefully be back to a more frequent schedule w/ updates from now on (:

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please leave kudos/comment if you enjoyed (:


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